News:

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

Nuclear-Strength Linthal 2015 Takes Shape In Swiss AlpsYes, this is a picture of a dump truck being hoisted up a mountain on cables. And no, it’s not photoshopped. You’re looking at the largest cable lift in the world, almost 2 kilometers long and 600 meters high, with two towers, a load capacity of up to 40 tons, cables 90 mm thick, and a pretty good speed of 5 meters per second.

The system took three years to build. And transport dumpers are not the heaviest loads it can carry , although they’re probably the most photogenic. The system can also lift whole ship containers.

Next surprise: this mammoth cable system is only a temporary fixture. It’s there to support construction of a huge $1.5 billion hydroelectric pumped-storage power plant called Linthal 2015.Workers from the Linth-Limmern AG utility, its partners the Canton of Glarus and Axpo AG, are now building this electric Godzilla about an hour from Zurich, Switzerland, high in the rocky Glarner mountains of the eastern Alps. As you can see from the photo, the area is so mountainous that road access for construction is impossible—thus the cableways.

Peak energy demand in the European grid is growing steadily. Consumption patterns and forms of production have changed considerably since construction of the original infrastructure. Production peaks/shortfalls from renewable power sources may require balancing at short notice. Also, security of supply has become a higher priority. These considerations all increase the usefulness of electric generators with peak-power storage. As well as providing power, Linthal 2015 will basically act as a huge battery.

Workers expect to complete the plant next year. (Their grandparents had a little practice with this type of project, having built an artificial lake [the Limmernsee] and an earlier 480 MW power plant lower down the mountain, at 1,900m above sea level, in the 1960s.) The new storage lake (Muttsee) will be 600 meters higher up the mountain than the Limmernsee. The lakes will be connected via two headrace tunnels and produce a net hydraulic head of 623 meters (2,044 ft).

A huge, deep cave with an inclined underground access gallery will house all the turbine and transformer machinery. Planned pump and turbine power is about 1,000 MW. With the output from the original facility, the Linthal 2015 project will produce easily as much power as a nuclear generating station. It will rank among the top 15 pumped-storage plants in the world.

The cablecar system will be dismantled when a funicular railway inside the gallery is complete. The railway will transport large, heavy machine components—including 215-ton transformers—and personnel directly from the base installation site of Tierfehd, near the foot of the mountain, to the turbine cavern. 380 kV cables run along the gallery shoulders will transmit the generated power.

Now, would you like to hear about the avalanche protection system? OK, maybe next time…. (If you really want to know, access the article by Thomas Rentsch and Ruedi Stüssi in the online Proceedings of the International Snow Science Workshop 2009.)

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RusHydro Starts-Up New 640-MW Unit at Sayano-Shushenskaya, Two More Coming Soon

Linas Jegelevicius, International Correspondent May 27, 2014

JSC RusHydro, Russia’s largest power-generating company, has announced that a new 640-MW hydropower unit has been commissioned at the company’s Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant (HPP), in addition to the other 8 hydropower units in operation at the plant.

Canadian provincial utility Hydro-Quebec celebrated its 70th anniversary in mid-April, noting that hydroelectric power was and continues to be part of the company's success.

Founded April 14, 1944, with the passage of an act establishing the Quebec Hydro-Electric Commission, Hydro-Quebec wasted little time breaking ground on its 1,178-MW Bersimis 1 and 869-MW Bersimis 2 hydro plants.

The boom in energy demand post-World War II quickly necessitated the construction of additional projects, with hydro plants on the Manicouagan River and Riviere Aux Outardes being built in the late 1950s.

Hydro-Quebec faced a pivotal moment in fall 1962 when the provincial government, headed by Jean Lesage, proposed the nationalization of all power utilities under the election slogan "Maitres Chez Nous," or "Masters in Our Own House." The movement led Hydro-Quebec to purchase 10 privately-held electric companies in May 1963 under the direction of Rene Levesque.

Since then, the utility has faced a number of challenges, including standardizing rates throughout the province, electrifying rural areas and setting up an effective distribution grid.

The company now operates 61 hydro projects that have a cumulative capacity of more than 36,000 MW, manages 34,000 km of transmission lines, employees 20,000 people, supplies 4.1 million customers and controls assets worth US$66.6 million.

The Upper Lillooet project - which would have included the 74-MW Upper Lillooet, 23-MW Boulder Creek and 16-MW North Creek hydropower stations - will be located on Crown land in British Columbia.

The project was granted environmental assessment certificates from the British Columbia government this past January.

The new agreement increases Upper Lillooet's capacity to 81.4 MW and Boulder Creek's to 25.3 MW. Meanwhile, the North Creek hydroelectric plant has been cancelled.

The project is being developed by Creek Power Inc., which is a joint venture between Innergex and the Ledcor Power Group Ltd.Partnership announced for Jimmie Creek project

Alterra Power Corp. and Fiera Axium Infrastructure Inc. have announced a partnership agreement for the ownership and construction of the 62-MW Jimmie Creek hydroelectric plant. Under the deal, Alterra will own 51% of the project, while Fiera will own the remainder through a managed fund.

Alterra assumed 100% ownership of the project in November 2013 from General Electric, after signing development agreements with the Klahoose First Nation for its construction in May 2012. Construction is under way, with an expected completion date in August 2016.

All power generated by Jimmie Creek will be sold to BC Hydro under a 40-year contract. Financial closing for the deal was expected later this quarter.

Canadian developer eyes pumped-storage projects

Canadian company Turning Point Generation has announced its plan to develop a pumped-storage hydropower project in Alberta with a capacity of 80 to 150 MW.

The unnamed plant is TPG's first pumped-storage project, although one necessary, the company said, for the province's energy security.

TPG has identified several of what it calls "favorable" sites and will now move ahead on the project's development.

"This project is our most advanced, has exceptional inherent site characteristics and enjoys favorable reception from key stakeholders, including the First Nations involved," TPG official Peter Bubik said. "We believe the Alberta power market provides an economical basis for pumped-storage at this time and the market indications are showing increasingly favorable economics for pumped-storage in the future."

Briefly...

BC Hydro plans to conduct dam safety reviews at three dams: 22-MW La Joie Dam, 42-MW Seton Dam and Terzaghi Dam, which impounds water for two Bridge River generating stations.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to provide assistance totaling US$217 million to support construction of the 290-MW Nam Ngiep 1 hydroelectric project on the Nam Ngiep River in Laos.

Japanese construction company Obayashi last year won a contract to provide civil engineering works for Nam Ngiep 1 in Xaysomboun and Bolikhamxay provinces. The project is being developed by Nam Ngiep 1 Power Co. Ltd., which is jointly owned by Kansai Electric Power of Japan, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and Lao Holding State Enterprise.

ADB is supporting Nam Ngiep 1 under a public-private partnership arrangement. The bank is providing an assistance package consisting of a US$50 million direct loan, a 3.04 billion baht (US$95 million) loan, and a B loan of US$72 million funded by the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Mizuho Bank Ltd., with ADB acting as lender of record. The project also will be financed by Japan Bank for International Cooperation and four Thai banks.

The project is to include a main power station, a reservoir of 67 square kilometers, a re-regulation power station and a 125-kilometer transmission line to connect to the Nabong substation near Vientiane.

Upon completion in 2019, the project is to supply the bulk of its power to Thailand with part of its generation to be used domestically to raise Laos' household electrification rate.

World Bank supports Laos' hydropower, mining sectors

The government of Laos also signed an agreement in which the World Bank is to continue technical assistance under a program to build the capacity of Laos' hydropower and mining sectors.

The World Bank approved US$17.8 million in additional financing to the hydropower and mining sectors project.

With financing from the World Bank's International Development Association, Laos' Institute of Renewable Energy Promotion last year took bids to become investor-operator of two micro-hydropower projects in Laos' Houaphan Province. The World Bank's International Finance Corp. also recruited consultants to serve as stakeholder engagement/communications specialist for the hydropower and forestry sectors in Laos.

A new report by WHRC scientists Marcia Macedo and Leandro Castello highlights hydroelectric dam projects in the Amazon as a key threat. The report, commissioned by the Living Amazon Initiative of the World Wildlife Fund, entitled, “State of the Amazon: Freshwater Connectivity and Ecosystem Health” reviews the current state of watershed ecosystem health and identifies key threats and opportunities for conservation across Amazonia. The report finds that planned hydroelectric dam projects will constrict every subwatershed and undermine the health of the entire Amazonian watershed.

The health of the Amazon watershed depends on annual flood cycles, which cause rivers to swell by as much as 20 meters each year. As river water overflows into the floodplains, rivers become connected to surrounding forests. This annual flood pulse serves as a giant mixing bowl, transferring vital sediments and nutrients and providing a highway for fish migration. Dam projects sever these essential connections, increasingly fragmenting individual subwatersheds and undermining the health of the whole Amazon system.

Dams are not the only threat to watershed health. The region continues to be at risk from deforestation, mining and hydrocarbon extraction, and climate changes, all of which may change the annual flood pulse and river connectivity.

Economic pursuits tend to increase energy demand, which drives the construction of more hydroelectric dams in the region. But these cumulative impacts are often ignored in environmental policies governing dam construction. Environmental impact assessments only consider the effects of individual projects, making it virtually impossible to achieve integrated watershed management.

The Amazon Basin spans seven nations, which is perhaps the biggest challenge to holistic watershed management. Healthy river systems depend on connectivity and do not respect political boundaries. In many cases, economic development activities in one country can incur environmental costs in another, yet there is not an overarching policy framework to help coordinate management activities across country boundaries.

Developing such a multinational framework is both the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for conserving Amazon freshwater ecosystems and supporting the productive fisheries and human populations that depend on them.http://bit.ly/1I3BQJe

I have wanted a dam ever since I bought the 'stead. I know right where it should go. I don't really think I'd get enough head to drive a turbine very often, but I sure would like to try it. The creek is named Mill Creek, and I think that means that at some point somebody had a dam that generated water power nearby. But so far I have not uncovered the history of the local mill that must have once existed.

Eddie,If your head is too low, there are still ways to get small scale hydro power. Forget the math for sufficient head for a moment. All you need is 3 or four gallons per minute of MOVING water.

I think you have that, do you not?

There are two ways to handle that.

1. A bullet shaped submersible electric generator is fastened to a post in the stream. You then use that electricity to run an electric centrifugal pump from the stream to a reservoir.

2. Skip the electric generator and put a hydraulic ram pump in the stream to pump water up to a reservoir. Ram pumps can, with very low stream velocity, pump water up as high as 40 FEET!

This is a 1973 article but the principle involved in hydraulic ram pumps is the same. Perhaps they are cheaper now than they were then:

The Hydraulic Ram Pump: Perpetual Motion for the Homestead Although water won't run uphill, some exceedingly clever soul discovered a long time ago that H2O can be persuaded to pump itself in that general direction. The hydraulic ram pump makes it possible.

Quote

... if your property contains a spring, creek, small stream, or other source with a flow of at least three gallons per minute (gpm) you can probably solve your problem easily and inexpensively with a hydraulic ram pump.

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All that time the device has been pumping clear, cool spring water up over a 25-foot hill—a distance of 150 feet—and into our farm pond, without the use of any fuel whatsoever. In short, we're getting about 500 gallons of water per day at an operating cost of zero ... and we expect this to continue for ten years or more.

Anti-nuke activist turned hydropower developer John Warshow was admired by friends and foes

Anne Galloway Jul. 6 2015, 11:16 am

John Warshow in a photo (at link) that his son David Warshow said expresses his father’s personality well. Photo courtesy Warshow family

John Warshow, an anti-nuclear activist and renewable energy pioneer, died last week.

Warshow, 59, and his business partner Mathew Rubin, became the first independent hydropower producers in Vermont. Their lifelong friendship was forged during an anti-nuclear protest: In 1978, they were arrested for chaining themselves to a fence outside the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.

A memorial service for John Warshow will be held 10 a.m. Sunday, July 19, at Marshfield’s Old Schoolhouse Common.

In the 1980s, Warshow and Rubin channeled their anti-nuclear activism into the development of alternative energy. They bought several defunct dams and, using a new federal law, sought to sell power from the dams to local utilities. One of the utilities, Green Mountain Power, fought the scheme for a dam in East Montpelier, and sued over Warshow and Rubin’s biggest scheme: The development of a large hydro dam on the Winooski River in Winooski. The litigation over the dam and over rates for the resulting hydropower went on for years. Eventually, they defeated the utility company in court.

Warshow was, as one friend put it, a “quintessential Vermonter” of the hippie era. He came to Vermont from Long Island in 1976 to attend Goddard College, which was a hotbed of liberal activism, and soon after became involved with his professor, Scott Nielsen, in the anti-nuclear movement. (He later married Nielsen’s daughter, Jenny, and they made Marshfield their home.)

In one memorable protest, Warshow, Rubin and about 150 demonstrators at Vermont Yankee chained themselves to the fence around the plant. Rubin recalls that the Vermont State Police used bolt cutters to release the protesters and then carted them off to the Brattleboro Armory.

The protesters waited for hours. By evening, they had no food, no blankets, no Band-Aids for the scratches they’d gotten in the fray of the protest, and so Warshow went over to the trooper in charge and asked to use the telephone. His one call was to Jerry Diamond, the Vermont attorney general.

“He said, ‘hey you’re in charge of the state police, therefore we’re your responsibility,’” Rubin said. “He read him the riot act, and Diamond was so stunned he called the state police, and they brought him down to Brattleboro, driving 90 miles an hour.”

The protesters were charged with trespassing, and Warshow sued the state over the right to demonstrate. He argued the case pro se (he represented himself), and when the case went before the Vermont Supreme Court, he won.

Warshow didn’t have a law degree. In fact, he didn’t graduate from Goddard College, but he became an astute student of the law and became very knowledgeable about federal and state utility statutes.

His keen intellect and legal savvy came in handy when he and Rubin decided to develop hydropower in the 1980s.

Marty Miller, an attorney who worked for Warshow and Rubin, said Warshow saw that nuclear power “wasn’t the way to go and he couldn’t just say no; he had to have an alternative.”

Old dams, new energy

That alternative energy source was hydro. Warshow and Rubin explored whether they could develop abandoned 19th century dams under a new federal law, the Public Utility Regulatory Power Act, which was enacted in 1978 and paved the way for independent companies to sell electricity to utilities. Today, 7 percent of the nation’s power comes from independent power producers, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Warshow and Rubin started with the old Wrightsville Dam in Montpelier. They obtained a federal license and permits for the property and then sold the project to the Washington Electric Co-op. Then they acquired abandoned dam sites in East Montpelier, Springfield and Winooski.

The East Montpelier dam had been owned by Green Mountain Power, but the utility let the federal license lapse and Warshow and Rubin swooped in to buy it. The duo obtained the land for the dam through an eminent domain proceeding. GMP officials were stunned.

When the pair tried to develop the Winooski dam, they became enmeshed in a seven-year legal battle with Green Mountain Power, the city of Burlington, the city of Winooski and the owner of the Chace Cotton Mill.

Burlington wanted to develop a dam on the river falls and spent $4 million on environmental studies. Under federal law, municipalities get first dibs for hydro licenses. The trouble was, the city was backed by a private enterprise — Green Mountain Power — and that put Warshow and Rubin on equal footing. Their proposal cost half as much and produced two-thirds of the power Burlington hoped to produce. Eventually, Warshow and Rubin won.

“John was a fighter, but without anger,” Rubin said. “In a business partnership that lasted 34 years, I never saw him lose his temper.”

They then went to war with Green Mountain Power over power rates. The utility didn’t want to pay rates allowable under federal law, which were in the 10 cents per kilowatt range at a time when nuclear power was selling for 4 cents per kilowatt. Warshow argued, again pro se, that the utility didn’t have a choice.

Miller said utilities have a state-granted monopoly for their service territories, and this was the first time an independent company was generating relatively large scale power.

“[John] led the fight at the PSB to obtain payments that were sufficient to actually build and run one of these plants, which was key to getting this whole industry going,” Miller said.

Warshow and Rubin bought GMP and Central Vermont Public Service shares (for themselves and their friends) and a group of 10 or so of the activists began showing up at the annual meetings. They gave utility executives a hard time about investments in the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire. (Warshow, who was a member of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance, spent 30 days in jail for a protest at Seabrook.)

Steve Terry, who was an executive with GMP, describes Warshow as “a tough opponent.” Terry doesn’t recall that the utility ever won a rate case against Warshow.

“They were scrappers, they were challenging GMP in rate cases,” Terry said. “They really knew how to make use of the media and they did. Their strategy always was news by embarrassment.”

As stockholders, they had access to private company information that they were more than happy to share with reporters. They turned the media onto information about executive pay and expense accounts, for example.

Eventually, GMP negotiated a confidential agreement with Warshow and Rubin, and the pair agreed to not set foot on the utility’s property, not to interfere with rate cases and not to own stock in the company.The rise of renewables

Terry said Warshow and Rubin were outliers, but he gives them credit for creating a visionary approach to renewable energy in Vermont that eventually became mainstream. The state of Vermont has adopted aggressive renewable energy goals, and GMP is now a national utility leader in the field.

“In order to do what we did, we had to create an industry,” Rubin said. “There were no independent power producers. They didn’t exist.”

Rubin and Warshow not only figured out how to go through the federal licensing process, they also had to work with the state to develop rates, contracts and regulations.

“Needless to say, back then the utilities had a monopoly, and they didn’t want anybody else playing in the sandbox,” Rubin said.

Warshow was fearless, Rubin said, because he had a strong sense of what he believed in. He also had no ego.

“The question was never whose idea it was, but the result,” Rubin said. “With someone like that, with intelligence and integrity, you can accomplish a lot and we did.”

In September, Rubin, Warshow and the Winooski One partnership sold the dam to the Burlington Electric Department and the city of Burlington for $12 million.

Warshow didn’t have much time to enjoy the proceeds of his once risky investment. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer formed by malignant plasma cells, less than two weeks before he died on June 28 of cardiac arrest, following kidney failure.

Warshow is survived by his wife, Jenny; his sons, David and Ethan; his father Alan, of Manhasset, New York; his sisters, Leslie, of Salt Lake City, and Susan, of Port Washington, New York; his nieces, Hannah and Julia, of Upton, Massachusetts, and his nephew, Jason, of Salt Lake City, who called John “Uncle Maple.”

Contributions in John’s memory may be made to the John L. Warshow Memorial Fund being created to support the development and maintenance of recreational, educational, and historical opportunities in Marshfield such as the Stranahan Memorial Town Forest that John helped create.

Memorial fund donations should be payable to the John L. Warshow Memorial Fund and sent to C/O Rich Phillips, 1119 Hollister Hill Road, Plainfield, VT 05667.

Editor’s note: Steve Terry and Mathew Rubin are members of the Vermont Journalism Trust, the nonprofit organization of which VTDigger is a part.

I am saddened to see this. My condolences to John’s family and friends.

Rich Lachapelle

July 6, 2015 at 2:16 pm

The man was a pioneer in Vermont in promoting renewable energy, even before it was trendy. He did however face vehement, organized protest when pushing to build the Winooski One hydro project which has been a huge success. It has since been purchased by Burlington Electric and contributes to it’s 100% renewable portfolio. He did not cave and cower when the protesters erected posters asking: “do you want the Winooski River to go through a hole this big?”.

Fred Woogmaster

July 7, 2015 at 6:37 am

“Who is it that says most, which can say more, Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you…” Shakespeare

A life of merit – without question.

Patrick Zachary

July 7, 2015 at 5:50 pm

John was a great guy. He was always willing to talk about his projects. I fondly remember walking the Winooski One dam with him during construction and stopping at spray paint circle around what was clearly a weed – he commented that this particular weed held the project up for a long time ( years). He was quiet, objective and determined. Well lived.

Bob Stannard

July 8, 2015 at 5:59 am

It was an honor to have known John and to work with him on the closing of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. He was a quiet man; an understated man, but you’d be ill-advised to underestimate him.

I never did have an opportunity to ask him his thoughts on those who oppose renewable energy; much as he opposed nuclear energy. It would have been nice to have been able to hear his perspective.

LONDON—Norway is hoping to become the “green battery of Europe” by using its hydropower plants to provide instant extra electricity if production from wind and solar power sources in other countries fade.Without building any new power stations, engineers believe they could use the existing network to instantly boost European supplies and avoid other countries having to switch on fossil fuel plants to make up shortfalls.

Norway has 937 hydropower plants, which provide 96% of its electricity, making it the sixth largest hydropower producer in the world—despite having a population of only five million.

Europe already has 400 million people in 24 countries connected to a single grid, with power surpluses from one country being exported to neighbours or imported as national needs change.

You ecotards are never happy are you. Not until everyone is living in caves. So let me ask you this Gary. Where do you think that organic matter goes if not into some reservoir behind a damn? Maybe the next large body of stagnate water? You don't seem very bright so don't beat yourself up if you can't answer.

agelbert reply to Copper

For once, I must agree with you. In the early 1940's, over 40% of the U.S. electric power came form hydroelectric power. That percentage of NON-coal polluting crap has yet to be achieved. Yes, the grid grew a LOT since then, and the nuclear power pigs were added to the SUBSIDIZED polluting fun and games, but it certainly DID NOT have to be that way.

Congress, in the 1960's, wanted a 50/50 mix of nuclear power and solar R & D for new electric power in the growing grid. But solar was deliberately defunded except for solar panels on satellites, a far more hazardous environment than the surface of our planet. This technology WAS NOT handed off to the business to produce highly efficient (and cheap with mass production) solar panels because it was a "national security" issue. But It wasn't just the nukers that wanted solar power to stay on the fringe.

At any rate, I agree with your point about methane. The FACT is that termites, which represent one of the largest biomasses on the planet (far larger than humans AND the farm animals we raise for food and milk), produce MORE methane than those cows and dams put together! And THAT is NATURAL methane.

I have never heard anybody screaming about all that methane the termites are making. I'm sure you haven't either.

So the methane produced as a "byproduct" of hydropower is BULLS HIT. That is the type of ecotard hyperbole that tarnishes renewable energy efforts.

Ecocide is real. WE are doing it. But it is NOT because of hydropower!

Some biomass weights:

Human population = 335,000,000,000 kg.

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"Human population = 335,000,000,000 kg. This figure is based on an average human weight of more than 100lbs, though (50kg, to be exact). I don't know how accurate this estimate is, especially considering that about 1/3 of us are children. There are supposedly around 1.3 billion cattle in the world, and, put together, they may weigh almost twice as much as our species."

Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba = 379,000,000,000 kg.There are more ants than krill. Also, metabolism plays a role along with biomass. A "million ruby-throated hummingbirds will consume much more food than one African Elephant, even though both have about the same biomass (3,000kg, or 3.3 US tons).

Thus, ants, as a group, may actually consume more resources per year than antarctic krill, even though both may have roughly the same biomass, because ants tend to be smaller, and live in warmer environments. Although there may be about 10-15 times the biomass of termites than cows in the world, studies have suggested that termites might produce almost 30,000 times as much methane per year because of their faster metabolism."

Huge Hydropower Plant to Harness Seawater and Solar Power in South America’s Driest Desert

Cole Mellino | January 22, 2016 3:54 pm

Lodged between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean is the Atacama Desert in Chile—the driest non-polar desert in the world.

It certainly isn’t a location where you’d expect to find a hydropower plant, but Valhalla, a Chilean company, plans to build Espejo de Tarapaca (Tarapaca Mirror), a 300-megawatt solar and hydropower plant.

Valhalla claims Chile’s unique coastal geography make its an ideal location for a solar and hydropower plant.

During the day, the plant will use solar power to move seawater up a tunnel to the top of a mountain, where the water will be stored in a natural reservoir, explained FastCoExist. At night, the water will be released back down, generating power as it falls. This way, the plant can generate power day and night. Pumped storage hydropower plants are not a new concept, but utilizing solar power to pump the water is.

“You need to be able to provide power when it’s needed, so it’s readily available and dispatchable,” Francisco Torrealba, co-founder of Valhalla, told FastCoExist. “If on a particular day you don’t have wind and can’t provide energy at a peak time, that would be a huge crisis. That’s why our concept becomes relevant.”

The water will be pumped up to a natural reservoir at the top of a mountain using solar power during the day. Then at night, the water will be released back down, generating power as it falls. Photo credit: Valhalla

Because there are natural reservoirs at the top of the mountain,the company will not need to build dams.

The Chilean coast is an ideal location for this type of project. “Chile has the best conditions in the world for solar plants—roughly 15 percent better than Arizona,” Torrealba said. “It’s really stunning. But Chile also has the best conditions in the world for pump storage running with seawater. That means we can produce flat, steady power at a very reasonable price.”

The company won’t have to construct dams, either. “We found these natural depressions that we believe were very ancient lakes, but obviously there is nothing there now, it is a desert, that will allow us to store water,” the company’s co-founder and chief executive Juan Andres Camus told Reuters.

And it’s currently cost-competitive with coal. “In Chile, we don’t have any subsidies for renewables, so we need to be able to compete straight with coal generation,” Torrealba explained. “It’s a very Darwinian world—you need to be able to play against coal. Our cost structure is at the price of coal right now.”

Valhalla is set to begin construction on the plant in the second half of 2016. They’re still in the process of securing funding for the venture, but they estimate they will be supplying electricity to utilities by 2020. They believe the Chilean coastline has the potential to supply power for all of South America.

“The region of Tarapaca can be a leader in solar energy,” Torrealba told Tunneling Journal. “And Chile can become an energy superpower in the world.”

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“We could completely replace all the generation in South America,” he told FastCoExist. “You could very easily envision a South America in 20-25 years which has an integrated grid all throughout the continent, in which Chile could be providing very cheap, clean electricity with this combination of pump storage and solar power.”

A coal-mine that powered German industry for almost half a century will get a new lease on life when it’s turned into a giant battery that stores excess solar and wind energy.

The state of North-Rhine Westphalia is set to turn its Prosper-Haniel hard coal mine into a 200 megawatt pumped-storage hydroelectric reservoir, which acts like a battery and will have enough capacity to power more than 400,000 homes, said state governor Hannelore Kraft. The town of Bottrop, where people worked the 600 meter (1,969 foot) deep mine since 1974, will keep playing a role in providing uninterrupted power for the country, she said.